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This is the result if electric fishing, don't worry, the science, the Flemish Fisher may only make fists in his pockets and against the wall............. (Translated by Bing)
Like · · Share · 10 hours ago

People who have entrusted me in the section are that electric fish the whole ecosystem in the North Sea to the banners helps, it now appears the greed to take the upper hand, and they want to clear out everything, even the ILVO sees nothing but benefits in this sustainable fishing, how you're handy with words to mislead people, I have 1 word for Criminal ... ... (Translated by Bing)
9 hours ago · Like · 4
Belle Luchie mo zeg!!!!
9 hours ago · Like
Juri Poublon Ja dat heeft kwantiteit boven kwaliteit! Smakelijk is dit niet.
Yes that has quantity over quality! This is not tasty. (Translated by Bing)

We should be outraged by Europe slaughtering sea life in the name of 'science'

One of the biggest jokes in conservation is the Japanese government’s claim to be engaged in “scientific whaling”. All the killing by its harpoon fleet takes place under the guise of “research”, as this is the only justification available, under international rules.

According to Joji Morishita, a diplomat representing Japan at the whaling negotiations, this “research programme” has produced 666 scientific papers. While we must respect Mr Morishita’s right to invoke the number of the Beast, which may on this occasion be appropriate, during its investigation of Japanese whaling, the International Court of Justice discovered that the entire “research programme” had actually generated just two peer-reviewed papers, which used data from the carcasses of nine whales.

Over the same period, the Japanese fleet killed around 3,600. So what were the pressing scientific questions this killing sought to address? Here are the likely research areas:

How much money can be made from selling each carcass?
Does whale meat taste better fried or roasted?
To what extent can we take the piss and get away with it?

We are rightly outraged by such deceptions. But while we focus our anger on a country on the other side of the world, the same trick – the mass slaughter of the creatures of the sea under the guise of “scientific research” – is now being deployed under our noses. Our own government, alongside the European commission and other member states, is perpetrating this duplicity.

Fishing in Europe with poisons, explosives and electricity is banned. But the commission has gradually been rescinding the ban on using electricity. It began with one or two boats, then in 2010, after ferocious lobbying by the government of the Netherlands, 5% of the Dutch trawler fleet was allowed to use this technique. In 2012 the proportion was raised to 10%. Eighty-five massive Dutch supertrawlers have now been equipped with electric pulse gear, at a cost of around £300,000 per ship.
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Over the past few months, the UK government has licensed a further 12 ships. These are registered in the UK and fly the Union flag, which means that they are allowed to fish within our 12-mile limit, but according to some in the fishing industry at least some of the boats have been financed and equipped by Dutch companies.

Pulse trawling, as the technique is known, uses electricity to flush flatfish or shrimp out of the sediments in which they hide. The electric shock makes them convulse and flip upwards, into the net. Electric fishing can greatly increase the catch of these species.

The industry and the Dutch and British governments claim that this technique is less damaging than conventional beam trawling. That is not exactly a high bar. If they needed to market influenza, they would doubtless argue that it’s better than bubonic plague.

Beam trawling is a perfectly designed system for maximum environmental destruction. It rips up not just the life on the surface of the seabed, but also, through the use of “tickler chains” (actually massive scouring devices, whose purpose is to extract buried flatfish), the underlying sediments.

So it is certainly conceivable that pulse trawling causes less damage than the full-spectrum ecocide delivered by beam trawling. But unfortunately we have, at present, no way of knowing.

There has so far been no serious effort to discover what the impacts of repeated electric shocks might be on any of the animal communities of the sea: those that live in the open water, on the seabed or under it. The tiny amount of research conducted so far has involved just a few species in fish tanks and, as far as I can discover, just one vague, poorly-designed and inconclusive study at sea.

Yet these 97 ships (85 Dutch, 12 “British”) have been licensed to operate across the entire southern North Sea: in other words, from Kent to Schleswig-Holstein, Edinburgh to Jutland.

Outrageously, this includes the region’s Special Area of Conservation: Dogger Bank. Special Areas of Conservation are supposed to confer the highest level of protection of any European wildlife sites. Thanks to a veto by the Dutch government, every part of the Dogger Bank and its remarkable habitats remains open to beam trawling – and now electric fishing – and this area is ripped up on a daily basis.

By 2014 the pulse trawlers were already operating across the whole southern North Sea, at greater intensity even than the traditional beam trawling fleet, with the exception of the seas within the 12-mile national limits around Britain, Germany and Denmark. With the licensing of the 12 “British” boats, our inshore waters will now also be exploited, including the two Special Areas of Conservation in England’s North Sea territorial waters: the North Norfolk sandbanks and the Haisborough, Hammond and Winterton reefs and banks, also off the coast of Norfolk.

Objections by groups such as the Marine Conservation Society, which have begged the government and the commission to ensure that protected sites are actually, er, protected, have simply been brushed aside.

So what possible justification does the commission give for permitting this mass deployment of an untested technology? Oh yes. It’s a “trial” for the purpose of “scientific research”. The commission tells me that the trial is “envisaged to last for five years.”

The Dutch government explains that this “research programme” will study “the selectivity of the pulse trawl and the environmental benefits of leaving the seabed undamaged”. Note that it says nothing about the possible downsides. It already assumes that the technique is beneficial and undamaging.

Given that the experimental area extends to the whole of the southern North Sea, what kind of an experiment is this? What’s the hypothesis? What’s the methodology? Where’s the control? How will the results be measured? Given that there appear to be no answers to these questions, let me propose some.

Hypothesis: That if pulse trawling is rolled out across the entire region before meaningful trials are conducted, the political momentum for its continued deployment – whatever the impacts may be – will become unstoppable.

Methodology: Equip 97 ships run by powerful corporations with gear worth £300,000 per boat to create what is, in effect, an irreversible decision. Fish everywhere to create a precedent and lobby and co-opt as many politicians as you can.

Results: Squillions of euros in the bank (preferably an offshore account) for Big Fish, while the small fishers with whom it competes are driven to the wall. Effects on the ecosystem: sorry, what was that?

Conclusion: The commission and its member governments are staffed by incompetent, gullible numpties, incapable of defending either the natural world or the public interest.

But if the commission is incompetent, careless and useless (who knew?), at least it’s not engaging in the outright falsehoods with which the British government seeks to justify the policy.

When asked what conditions it had attached to its licensing of “British” vessels to use electric fishing, the UK’s environment department, Defra, told me that these included “ensuring electric trawling is only allowed in certain areas”. “Certain areas” turns out to mean, yes, the entire southern North Sea, including the three Special Areas of Conservation.

The government went on to claim that permission would be rescinded if a scientific assessment established that harm was being done, but given that there is no credible means of assessment, it’s impossible to see how this could happen.

The government then told me an outright lie. “Currently studies indicate that pulse stimulation does not result in an increased mortality in sole, cod, brown shrimp and rag-worm. No mortality or spinal injury had been found in plaice, sole, cod, for example.”

It must have assumed that journalists do not read scientific papers. Perhaps in most cases this is a safe assumption, so lying about their content is generally risk-free. Not in this case.

Among the few studies of the impacts of pulse trawling conducted so far is one showing that between 50 and 70% of large cod that come close to a passing electrode at realistic field strengths suffer fractured vertebrae. The cracking of their spinal columns through electric shocks also creates internal haemorrhages.
Between 50 and 70% of large cod that come close to a passing electrode at realistic field strengths suffer fractured vertebrae Between 50 and 70% of large cod that come close to a passing electrode at realistic field strengths suffer fractured vertebrae. Photograph: Wageningen UR

Another trial showed that shrimp exposed to electric shocks have a significantly higher risk of subsequent infection with a virus. A further study showed a “statistically significant lower survival” rate for ragworm.

As for flatfish like sole and plaice, we simply have no idea. In 2012, a small-scale fisherman in Kent told the Sunday Times that the areas through which the pulse trawlers have passed are “a graveyard. What they don’t catch, they annihilate. Virtually everything is dead.” Another reported “You can have as many as 50 dead Dover sole in an hour and a half. We would hardly ever see a dead fish before. It is a waste of time going to that area now. It stinks of dead fish.”

And the rest of the ecosystem? Who knows? Some research finds that pulse trawlers have a lower bycatch (species they do not intend to take) than beam trawlers. This may be true, and it would scarcely be difficult, given the extraordinary amount of damage wreaked by conventional methods. But a study of pulse trawlers fishing for shrimp revealed “considerably higher bycatch rates for some species, compared to traditional beam trawls with sieve nets.”

Electric fishing allows boats to catch flatfish on muddy bottoms, which is difficult with conventional beam trawling, so it is likely to spread fishing damage into some of the few areas that were not previously being repeatedly wrecked. Pulse trawlers extracting flatfish still use a thick cable (the footrope) that drags across the bottom, so the physical damage they cause remains extremely high, while the electrical damage is unknown.

Pulse trawling allows shrimp fishers to operate in clear water and during daylight, when shrimp are inaccessible to conventional fishing, so this could greatly increase the catch rate. Amazingly, there are no limits on the amount of shrimp that can be taken in the North Sea. When the same technologies were deployed in the East China Sea, they led to the collapse of the fishery, with the result that electric fishing is now banned in China.

As for the effects of repeated exposure to electric shocks on the animals of the sea, the impacts these might have on their ability to breed, implications for the survival of long-lived species, the long-term damage that might be done to species that detect their prey through electroreception (such as sharks and rays) and a host of other such questions, there is simply no data at all. Studies in freshwater suggest that electric shocks can be highly damaging to both fish eggs and fish embryos, but we have no idea whether the same effect occurs in salt water.

Given that there are no controls on this “experiment”, no areas from which the fishing boats are excluded, no methodology and no obvious measurement parameters, the only way in which we are likely to discover whether or not the technique is damaging is through the collapse of the marine ecosystem across the entire fished area. How else could it be determined?

What this issue highlights is the absence of meaningful protection for the wildlife of the sea.

Astonishingly, fishing, like farming, is entirely exempt from the environmental impact assessments that every other industry must undertake. A friend who works for the offshore wind industry tells me that the impact assessment for a large marine wind farm runs to about 20,000 pages, even though windfarms appear to have almost no impact on subsea life except a positive one, by providing places on which wildlife can anchor and offering some protection from trawlers.

To conduct an experimental trawl to discover what lives on the seafloor where a wind farm is planned, my friend must submit an exhaustive application for a licence specifying where and when and for how long the trawl will be conducted. He hires a trawler and crew to do the work. When the job is done, they wave goodbye, drop the nets back over the side and carry on fishing, without the need for any permission at all.

In other words, fishing in EU waters is smash and grab piracy of the most primitive kind, unregulated, unlicensed, and controlled only by the crudest possible method: namely the setting of quotas.

Everything wrong that takes place on land is multiplied by ten at sea, because politicians reckon that what the eye don’t see the heart don’t grieve. It’s time that changed.

Support the Marine Conservation Society, Greenpeace, Oceana, Save Our Seas, Blue Marine, Sea Shepherd or one of the other groups desperately fighting to protect the life of the seas, and let them know you care.

Pulse fishing has been the subject of a concerted campaign in the mainstream media and there are upcoming events at the European Parliament ahead of a crucial vote due to take place later this month. Dutch pulse fishermen are adamant that their fisheries have been portrayed in the worst possible light by NGOs – and have hit back at the flood of misinformation and fake news.

‘What we are looking for is a continuation of research into pulse fishing so that a balanced judgement can be made on the basis of scientific facts,’ said Pim Visser of Dutch fishermen’s organisation VisNed. ‘We’re absolutely not looking for pulse fishing to be opened up everywhere.’

He dismissed the claims made by Bloom and LIFE Platform against pulse fishing as ‘so much nonsense,’ citing the example Bloom’s claim of the €5.7 million subsidy to support pulse fishing.

‘This is an absolutely ridiculous figure, and it’s a number they made up by themselves. They claim that the Dutch government is not properly transparent so they had to estimate – and came up with this imaginary figure. It’s fake news. That’s the only way you can describe it.’

He said that in 2009 in the development phase, four vessels were equipped with experimental gear, with each boat’s owners investing half a million Euros of their own resources in this.

‘Each was helped with €170,000 to facilitate further development, which they did,’ he said.

‘Apart from this, no national or European public funds have been used to subsidise investment in pulse fishing for the private sector. €3.80 million of the Dutch EMFF budget has been committed to two research projects about pulse fisheries. The first project is an impact assessment to develop the fundamental knowledge on the effects of electricity on marine organisms and the benthic ecosystem required to assess the ecological consequences of this new fishing method. The second aims to study the selectivity gain that pulse technology can have in the shrimp fishing industry. The main value of pulse technology in the shrimp fishing industry is to reduce by-catches,’ he said, and added that all this information is publicly available, with no need to make up any new figures.

According to Pim Visser, there are currently Dutch 84 pulse fishing licences, of which 75 are active and the others are either dormant or within the brown shrimp fishery. In addition there are a handful of UK and German pulse fishing licences, of which around half are in use.

He points out that there has been a massive reduction in fishing effort already, with half of the Dutch fishing fleet scrapped, while the remainder of the fleet’s target species are now all fished at MSY level or better.

‘There’s no proof that the Commission’s 2006 decision (to increase pulse licences) is creating large scale environmental and social damage. On the contrary, fishing is at sustainable level; fuel consumption is 50% down and fishing communities are thriving,’ Pim Visser said and added that they are keenly aware of the problems facing French, Belgian and English fishermen.

‘That’s why we are reaching out to them to agree voluntary separation schemes, and to find out whether their hardships are caused by the Dutch fishing activities. We have met fishermen from England and agreed that areas that were previously not fished will not be fished from now on by the pulse trawlers. So there will be no fishing on the Falls area, and we are now having the same discussion with the Lowestoft fishermen to leave certain areas unfished,’ he said.

‘Bloom has really picked a fight here. They have persuaded French supermarkets to refuse to sell soles caught by pulse beamers and last week a question was raised why supermarkets should refuse to buy these high quality fish caught with a low environmental impact – and nobody was able to make a coherent response,’ he said, commenting that the impasse over pulse fishing has exact parallels with the Bloom campaign against deep water fishing.

‘Bloom and others are using harsh words and claim the credibility of the European Commission is at stake. For our part, we doubt the credibility of assumptions and allegations which are not factual and which are not backed by independent science,’ Pim Visser said.

‘The fishermen who are siding with Bloom on this have made a deal with the devil. Bloom’s next target will be to end all bottom trawling.’

The anti-pulse trawl lobby peaked this week in Brussels with a campaign ahead of the crucial vote on a new regulation for the conservation of fishery resources that will take place on 16 January 2018. Europêche, which represents European fishing associations, believes that this is the umpteenth attempt to demonise an innovative fishing method.

‘We are confronted with a new offensive orchestrated by the radical environmentalists in a further attempt to discredit a fishing gear, in line with a previous campaign against deep sea bottom trawling,’ said Europêche President Javier Garat.

‘We reiterate that there are no good or bad fishing gears, it all depends on their use. It is frustrating that after so much time and work with scientists to find a way to reduce the impact of fishing gears, when the system is finally developed, some just try to demonise it.’

He said that pulse fishing has been a much debated innovation, widely discussed in Brussels in light of the newly proposed Regulation on conservation of fisheries resources and the protection of marine ecosystems through technical measures.

‘The European fishing industry represented by Europêche defends all fishing methods permitted by Law. We believe that if properly managed, all fishing techniques are sustainable, including pulse fishing. Radical NGOs are trying to sabotage the difficult compromise reached in the Fisheries Committee of the European Parliament back in November that represented a democratic, reasonable and sustainable solution,’ he said, commenting that Europêche is urging the European Parliament Plenary to respect this compromise in order to allow innovation and the development of new sustainable fishing techniques which is the sole way the sector can adapt to new legislative scenarios such as the landing obligation.

Currently three Member States have issued licenses allowing this fishery in certain areas of the North Sea. Following years of research and investment, by-catches of non-target species are down by 50% and fuel consumption by 46%, combined with a lighter impact on the sea bed reducing the area swept by 20%. The vessels equipped with this technology are strictly monitored and controlled by the use of black boxes to ensure that the low levels of voltage used do not exceed what is permitted by law.

Europêche argues that pulse fishing could have a valuable role to play in breaking new ground for other innovative technologies, while conceding that there are still some open questions about possible unintended by-effects in the marine environment which are been identified and addressed by the industry together with international scientists in ongoing independent research.

‘Despite these efforts, fraudulent and misleading information about the environmental impact of the pulse has been widely spread by some NGOs with the sole objective to ban particularly this fishing method and generally bottom trawling,’ Javier Garat said.

‘Over the past few years we have witnessed EU legislation vilifying many types of fishing practices, seeing blanket bans as the answer; driftnet ban, deep sea ban or discard ban. Blanket bans are never the answer and have catastrophic consequences for the sector, particularly in the context of the landing obligation which forces EU vessels to be even more efficient and selective. EU legislation must be flexible enough to enable progress towards innovative fishing gears. Fishing practices vary throughout the EU and so regional legislation is key, not EU-wide bans, nor unfair demonisation.’

The UK-Dutch agreemeent will keep pulse beamers out of zones off the English east coastThe two Lowestoft zonesThe Ramsgate zone

Dutch and English fishermen’s organisations have struck a voluntary deal on three areas of the North Sea to be kept free of pulse fishing. One zone is off Ramsgate and two are off the English east coast off Lowestoft, and the agreement is in force as of today (15th January) and each zone also has temporal limits.

The agreement was brokered by Visned in Holland and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations on the UK side. The details were discussed at a meeting in late December, also bringing in Dutch associations PO Delta Zuid and the Dutch Fishermen’s Association, to propose spatial and temporal closures following strong concerns expressed in by English East Coast inshore fishermen over the impact on their fisheries of Dutch vessels using pulse gear as an alternative to conventional beam trawling.

At an early stage it was agreed that the NFFO would make a proposal for a voluntary agreement that Dutch fishermen would avoid using pulse gear in three designated areas. The fishermen present were of the view that these closed areas could be of assistance in reducing tensions, while the collection of definitive evidence on the wider questions surrounding pulse fishing is completed.

The decision was to close the area off Ramsgate from the twelve mile limit as far as 1°50’E, as well as the East Lowestoft area from October to the end of May and the Welland area from February to the end of May, with discussions still taking place on the full extent of the boundaries and timing of the East Lowestoft area.

Fishermen from the Orford region also took part in the discussions, although no decision was made on an area closed to pulse fishing for this area.

‘The view of local fishermen is that the arrival of pulse fishing coincided with a dramatic observed decline in the availability of commercial species locally,’ the NFFO states.

‘Although the marine environment is a dynamic system with a range of interacting factors in play, locally there is little doubt that the intensity of pulse fishing offshore has been a direct causal factor in the serious decline in the local fisheries. As the pulse fishery takes place offshore, outside the twelve mile limit, voluntary closed areas would not address the central issue facing inshore fishermen operating mainly within the twelve mile limit. We have not therefore made a proposal for this area.’

‘We recognise that pulse fishing is new and controversial and has led to changes in the spatial distribution and intensity of fishing in some areas,’ said Pim Visser of VisNed.

‘An enormous amount of scientific work has been undertaken and is being undertaken, to measure the effects of pulse fishing. We also acknowledge the concerns of fishermen on the English side, although in my own view much of what has been said is wildly alarmist.’

‘While these scientific studies are being undertaken, and as a goodwill gesture, we met with the inshore fishermen from Ramsgate, the Thames Estuary, Orford and Lowestoft in London. It was a very constructive meeting and the English fishermen put forward a number of concrete proposals. The result is we are prepared to accept the closed areas suggested by the fishermen,’ he said.

NFFO chief executive Barrie Deas commented that the concerns of the English coastal fishermen are that pulse fishing has ecosystem impacts and there are serious concerns over the increased number of large vessels using this method in UK waters, while decreased catches in inshore zones have coincided with the rise of pulse trawling.

‘It seemed worthwhile to see if a voluntary agreement could be reached quickly, with the people most affected in the room, to ensure that the closed areas are in the right place and at the right time,’ he said.

‘The Dutch fishermen have responded positively so we have taken a small step forward. I think that it is important not to oversell this agreement. I hope that will help, but it is without prejudice to any Government policies that might be adopted in the future on the basis of scientific advice.’

It was noted at the meeting that as pulse fishing has opened up previously inaccessible areas of soft ground to beam trawlers, there has been a significant shift in fishing effort towards the south and west of the North Sea – taking this fishing effort to the Greater Thames area.

‘It is therefore a moot point whether the changes in the stock abundance in local fisheries are the consequences of using electricity to stimulate flatfish into the net (which awaits definitive scientific advice), the impact of a greater concentration of fishing effort into areas fished by or adjacent to those fished by English inshore fishermen (which might be mitigated by voluntary spatial agreement), or derived from other factors within the dynamic marine environment.’

There have already been angry speeches in Strasbourg, and there will undoubtedly be more before the day is over as the European Parliament is due to decide on the future of pulse fishing.

The session takes place today and this has become a bitter battleground between the Dutch industry and the opponents of pulse fishing, mainly in France and the UK. The likely outcomes hinge on amendments tabled by Breton MEP Alain Cadec, which if passed would require the Dutch fleet to return to only 5% of its fleet fishing with pulse gear, while the remainder of the pulse fleet would be able to fish for what remains of their temporary licence periods, and then return to conventional methods.

An amendment put forward by French MEP Isabelle Thomas would be for all electric fishing to be ended immediately.

According to Dutch MEP Peter van Dalen, speaking to EMK, Alain Cadec’s amendment stands a strong chance of being passed during the plenary session. Isabelle Thomas’s more radical amendment has a low chance of going through, although it’s a possibility.

The campaigns in favour of and against pulse fishing leading up to today’s vote have become increasingly frantic. The Dutch industry and its federations have consistently pointed to the figures; that pulse fishing has lower discards and lower fuel costs compared to conventional beam trawling, while the size of the fleet has been dramatically cut in recent years.

What has served to ratchet up the heat of the pulse trawl debate is the involvement of French pressure group Bloom, and Peter van Dalen commented that he and other MEPs have referred Bloom to an internal EU organisation that screens NGOs, stating that; ‘their campaign is built on pure lies.’

Opponents of pulse fishing have repeatedly pointed to the problems faced by coastal fishermen, in particular those fishing off the east coast of England and French fishermen working in the Eastern Channel who have seen their catches drop alarmingly.

R03;Jerry Percy, executive director for LIFE, said that the Dutch electric pulse fishing lobby has been reduced to throwing out insults in a last ditch attempt to cloud the real impacts of the use of electricity in the sea, commenting that it is important to note that the objections raised by LIFE to the use of pulse were based entirely on the real time observations of other commercial fishermen.

‘The Dutch had tried to undermine this information by suggesting that these fishermen were simply ‘jealous’, a blatant insult to other fishermen who were suffering as a result of the ravages of this so called ‘innovative’ gear,’ he said.

‘We can understand why the Dutch fleet are so keen to promote the method, they were under increasing pressure over the impact of their beam trawl fishing and the pulse gives them the chance to reduce their fuel costs and persuade regulators that the method is a better option,’ he commented, arguing that this is a fundamental nonsense.

‘When other commercial fishermen state clearly that they see the massive damage that pulse fishing is doing to stocks then someone in authority has to be brave enough to stand up and declare that enough is enough. This is not research, this is a con perpetrated by a small group of fishers who have found a way to dramatically increase their profits at the expense of everyone else and the marine environment,’ Jerry Percy said, while dismissing moves by the Dutch federations to establish pulse-free zones as a PR stunt.

The controversy over pulse fishing has grown steadily over the last few years as both sides have argued their case, with both putting forward string arguments to support their positions. There are significant unanswered questions about pulse fishing, just as there are a whole series of problems that have been nailed to one issue.

As the Dutch federations point out, fish stocks in the North Sea are at their strongest since 1957, so the problem is not an overall shortage of fish, but a scarcity of fish in coastal zones – while the North Sea also has seen a massive growth in windfarms, a changing climate and other factors, any of which could contribute to alterations in the behaviour of fish populations.

The future of pulse fishing will be – to a greater or lesser extent – decided today in the European Parliament with today’s vote, following yesterday’s debate.

In a surprise result, the European Parliament has voted for a full ban on electric fishing, and to end pulse fishing entirely.

Pulse fishing has been in place for almost two decades under experimental status, but this method became increasingly widespread as the number of licences were increased to 84, beyond the Dutch fleet’s initial 5% limit.

Ending pulse fishing is without doubt a severe blow to the Dutch beam trawl fleet, which will have no real option other than to return to conventional methods or to diversify into other fishing activities.

The vote is seen as a victory for environmental groups that have fought for pulse fishing to be ended, although the effects of the prohibition on pulse fishing remain to be seen as this opens questions of the socio-economic impact on fishing communities in Holland, as well as where the NGOs are likely to turn for their next target.